Monitoring task progression and completion within a corporate environment is complex. Frequently, within those environments, one will find that supervisors have created spreadsheets, project lists or other informal tracking systems to monitor the tasks assigned by and to the supervisor. When perhaps hundreds of tasks are assigned, it is difficult to keep a tab on the tasks and their status, to remember when and whether a task has been completed, and to review whether the task has been completed to the satisfaction of the issuer.
Computerized business workflow systems are known for providing scheduling and analysis of workflow. Such systems allow a supervisor to graphically view tasks, work projections, loading, and scheduling in a single format. The programs typically require vigilance on the part of the supervisor to ensure that tasks are active until completion and, when completed, completed to satisfaction. Prior systems do not give a combination of both simple, intuitive notification to the originator and workers when tasks are assigned, modified or completed, together with an action requirement that the originator, and only the originator (or a proxy for the originator) affirmatively close the loop on a workflow item before the system actually closes the item.
Ouchi (U.S. Pat. No. 6,539,404) describes a workflow system for processing a document, and adds that an over-the-counter email system within in the workflow can be used to notify others when tasks associated with the document processing are performed. The same email system can be used for notification of the occurrence of tasks by others. Ouchi does not disclose that the workflow system have an affirmative requirement by the document originator to complete a document review loop before the loop is closed by the system. Thus, a document review loop may be closed without requiring the originator to affirmatively close it. Notifying the originator of completion does not give the originator control over whether the item has been completed to the satisfaction of the originator before the item leaves the email distribution. Further, without an affirmative closure by the originator (effectively certifying that the item is finished to satisfaction), any reporting information regarding the efficiency or effectiveness of the workers is suspect.
Cherneff et al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,493) describes a computer implemented product development planning tool, specifically modeling techniques for the manufacturing of products and product components (as opposed to, for example, the document review process of Ouchi). FIG. 7, for example, illustrates a task progress view which lists the various tasks needed to be done for the completion of a particular assignment. Start times, finish times, durations and variances can be recorded and charted for purposes of efficiency evaluation. The technique described facilitates task modeling and scheduling. Cherneff shows various reporting techniques for task completion, but does not describe how the sources of the tasks, nor those responsible for the tasks interact in a constructive way with each other as the tasks are assigned, worked, and reported, except to record in the task tables, their necessity and their details associated with their occurrence (such as duration, etc.). Further, because the workflow does not have a mandatory return to an originator for closure, the reports of efficiency and effectiveness are suspect. For example, workers who “close” a task upon completion may be credited in the system for “completion,” “timeliness,” or other status that is more complimentary than the reality. As a result, reports reflective of performance are skewed by the information.
Marchak et al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,138,104) describes constructive interaction between various entities in a workflow. It describes a product development system that provides graphical user interfaces for reporting tasks, and their completion, and adds a work management tool where individual tasks are defined in terms of a sequence of life-cycle stages, where each stage defines the roles responsible for planning, doing, administering, and receiving the deliverable. Fields within the graphical user interfaces are made visible, modified, and added to reflect the information pertinent to the particular stage in which the deliverable resides. Specification can also be made as to who can edit fields in the life-cycle process, which attachments are visible, and who can edit attachments as the deliverables proceed through the life-cycle. The Marchak system runs on top of a database and an operating system, and provides network interaction.
Marchak defines and distinguishes doers, planners, distributors, and administrators in the life-cycle process. The system does not provide a full cycle, however, where the task workflow remains open until the originator of the task is satisfied that the task is fully completed to definition. Rather, Marchak states that each stage is complete only upon the entry of substantive information required to create the discrete work deliverable. In one such example, a program is included “allowing said appropriate user to indicate that work on the category instance has been completed,” leaving off the requirement for the originator to accept the unilateral indication. As specifically described, work flow occurs “when a user checks out a deliverable to work on it” and ends “when a user checks the deliverable back into the system.” The originator, meanwhile, is not required to return to the loop.
As a whole, prior workflow techniques fail to provide a truly complete loop of product (or other task) development where a simple, intuitive, graphics-based system coordinates the product (or other task) development through to completion at which time the originator (or proxy) must close the open item. Known workflow systems are either not particularly intuitive (such as custom spreadsheet or database programs), are trackers more than accountability engines (such as schedulers), or fail to provide valid reporting of true productivity (such as systems with only partial life cycle accountability).